For the majority of my youth and even young adult life I wondered why I had gravitated towards the villains of film only to find that many do and it was not just me. Even then there was part of me that has a realization that a lot had to do with seeing every portrayal of my ethnicity as the other in opposition mostly Westerns of course, writing a narrative for a demographic. This is the business of that model.

I grew up with the James Bond movies as anyone else did and time of that model has shown a progression that puts people at odds as with the climate of tension we live in. Nonetheless, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t fond of Bond’s choice to come in form of Daniel Craig so many years back now. Like anything in life change is hard even for something you’re not so committed to but all the same, it was that. A new face different name, a white savior is what I chalked it up to not knowing much but going with the narrative that was going on at the time.

On his final film I can admit how wrong I was about it all. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I can say in my defense that I made a turn when Skyfall was released and the writing went into depth which I think happened from the industry itself. It upsets some and that is just change. If anything as an artist I see that we are all learning how empty certain things are without honesty. Of course there will always exist a place for entertainment that is purely over the top but it has been good to see the tide rise in writing beyond simple things.

In the latest take on villain and plot I can see why this was pushed back and the benefits that served the film. For one the plot itself being too close to home on a global reach for it’s premise but also a need to give Craig his just due for his swan song as James.

The opening sequence was nothing short of greatness with the cinematography and edits. I can only say I was disappointed that I didn’t see this the first time in a theater with premium sound quality which I did the second view.

What compels me to write about this at all is my doubts that were dormant for years that lay to resolve. First that Craig owned his time as the arc of his character written for him. Second the achievement of writing villains with motivation just complex enough to keep a mystery floating in the middle for tension.

Far off are the days of empty villains, or at least I hope, where there is nothing more than being evil for evil sake and a hero to save the day. People can blog or post to their hearts content about how angry they are that things have changed but this started with Darth Vader decades ago, a tyrannical father figure who ultimately showed the compassion of character while being a villain.

There is a power to cinema or at least there was once. I say that because it’s so abundant now and the ability to make video is in everyones hand that has the patience to edit which I can say I’m one at least in the documentary genre which leads me to another villain that was well written.

As his lines were written well “when everyone is super, no one is”.

Which brings me back to the humanity of Craig as Bond and it’s achievement. I also think of how well Tarantino wrote the reality of assassins in his films. Two sides of the same coin comes to mind. For some the arc of Craig’s Bond hit too close to home as it explored the unglamorous side of a spy beyond fantasy but a world with repercussions.

One might wonder why I post these things as they don’t relate to my art of culture but all I can say is like I always have, I exist in this time and I’m shaped by these things around me. I’m not a villain wearing a mask or one riding horseback coming after anyone. I was born in my homeland and this thing that has grown up around me is sometimes a mystery.

It’s only by being a father that I’ve learned how much Native people have been written deep as mythos that I am aware of these things.

It gave me a reason to dig into my empathy for one dimensional characters all these years and see them evolve in writers rooms from countless people speaking up and making things a little more ‘close to home’.

I can appreciate fantasy and fiction as much as anyone else but as they say truth is stranger than fiction sometimes and the world has woken up to that. At the end of the day family at the core of story resonates deeply. In this final chapter of the James Bond work with Craig and it’s storyline this truly hit home. The idea that some of us are born into a world writing us into who we can or cannot be. Unknowing of the opposition that sees you written into a role before you enter the playing field.

I recall an interview with Mike Meyere on Inside the Actors studio when he talked about his father saying to him “even a villain is the hero of their own story”. He made comedy from what the Bond films had turned into.

I met people in my youth who had me in their crosshairs for differences that existed decades before my existence. It had been a mystery to me how that even was and I’m ashamed to say I was oblivious but then again how was that my duty?

Many of my great uncles are gone now and many of them were enlisted in war. As I knew them, I knew them as humble people returning home to do day to day jobs, nothing profound. They laid a foundation for me to become an artist with a conviction to reconnect with the land and the ground beneath my feet.

Equally so all my aunties who made that a point and preserve knowledge by living their lives, not as the center of attention but the movement of being.

I’d like to think they would value the distance we’ve come all while standing still in the place we’ve always been on these shores. Even if I was seated I was moved by a story and that is universal, I’d like to think so at least.